Maharashtra polls: Uddhav approached me for pre-poll alliance but later backtracked, says Raj Thackeray

MUMBAI: Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray dropped a bombshell on Thursday by claiming that his attempts to join hands with the Shiv Sena have come to nothing because of Uddhav’s dithering.

Speaking to a private Marathi channel, the MNS chief claimed his last conversation with Uddav took place just hours after Sena’s break-up with the BJP on September 25, when the Sena chief approached him to discuss a pre-poll alliance, but later showed no interest to take it forward.

Raj’s revelations assume significance because political watchers are tracking closely whether the cousins will come closer. But the MNS chief made it amply clear that such an attempt has fallen through, at least for the time being.

Raj said that he got a call from Uddhav, and they discussed the three options before them: one was to join hands; the other was to avoid targeting each other; and the third was to strike a post-poll alliance.

“I asked him how to take this forward. He said two people from his side, including Sena MP Anil Desai, will deal with the matter with two of my deputies. We discussed this internally, and next morning, on September 26, MNS MLA Bala Nandgaonkar had a chat with Desai, but things just did not make any progress.

“We had almost reached a stage of dividing the seats on paper and holding back nomination forms in some constituencies. But Uddhav’s reluctance to take this forward was obvious.

Desai stopped answering our calls. It was clear that Uddhav backtracked, so we went ahead and filed all our nominations,” Raj explained.